Knowing the profile of the tourist is of great importance for the economic and social development of cities, in the same way that is very important for a person who owns a business to know the customer profile to be served. 

In the case of cities and tourist destinations such as Santander, knowing the profile of tourists and visitors to the city allows us to adjust our municipal services, covering the needs they may have: reinforcement of staff in certain areas, adjustements in buildings or monuments that are frequently visited in order to reduce queues and waiting times, setting up ticket issuing or booking services, languages of the services, etc. In short, it helps us to improve our services to enhance the experience of tourists and visitors to Santander, and thus ensure their "loyalty", trying to make they return. 

For several years now, your City Council has been compiling monthly demographic studies of visitors to Santander. Do you want to know how these demographic analyses are carried out? Read on! 

Tourism has no secrets for Big Data 

The Big Data tool of the Santander SmartCitizen initiative, which the City Council has been using for several years to collect data on tourism and the profile of visitors to Santander, has become a great ally during the state of alarm and de-escalation phases of Covid-19.  

The tool uses information from mobile devices, in an anonymous and aggregated way, to collect data, applying analytical algorithms and generating reports. This new Big Data technology tool provides us with disaggregated data that, until recently, we did not have with such granularity. Data that are very useful for the growth of the tourism sector, such as: knowing and understanding what tourists and visitors to Santander are like, their origin and destination (international, national, regional, etc.), their age range, their overnight stays and even how they move within your city and the times where they do so. 

Another way Santander uses to find out information about tourists and visitors is by collecting data on the use of credit cards in tourist areas, which is very useful when it comes to finding out the average tourist or visitor's spending in a given area. 

These methods are very common in tourist cities and territories to know the economic reality of the city and, above all, to be able to carry out good quality tourism planning. 

After the analysis provided by the tool, a monthly report is made to the City Council with the aim of improving the city's tourist services in order to adapt them to the tourist profile and demand reflected in the data. Thanks to this great data analysis tool, Santander becomes the first municipality to have daily information on the visitor profile. 

If you want to be aware of the most relevant information about the tourist visiting your city, how this profile is evolving, how your City Council adapts its tourist offer or you are simply thinking of opening a new business in your city focused on tourism, do not miss the information and articles that we will be providing you later on.